"Well," he drawled, scratching his bushy head to cover his confusion, "this reflects great credit on your bringin' up, Jim, and I'm sure Miss Bonnair will appreciate what you've done for her, especially as I happened to notice a couple o' head of your own cows in that bunch, but it's a mighty expensive way to collect snake-tails. We ain't gittin' the cattle, boys; that's the size of it, and they're as much yours as they are mine. Now I suggest that we run these few we've got down to the corral and brand 'em quick--and then the whole shootin'-match goes over to the big white cliff and rounds up every rattlesnake in the rock pile! Is it a go?"

"Sure!" yelled the bunch impetuously, and as they charged down upon the herd Creede quietly fished out his snake-tail and dropped it in the dirt.

If he lacked a virtue he could feign it, anyhow--but there was no doubt about it, Miss Kitty was putting his _rodeo_ on the b.u.m. There had never been so many men to feed and so few calves to brand in the history of Hidden Water. Even old Bill Johnson had got the fever from hearing the boys talk and was hanging around the fire. But then, what were a few head of cows compared to--well, what was it, anyway? The only man who could stay away was Rufe, and he was in good company.

Yet Creede was not satisfied with this explanation. Miss Kitty was always asking questions about Rufe--they had known each other well in Berkeley--and at the same time the little partner with whom he had been so friendly never came around any more. He was always very polite, and she called him by his first name--and then one of them rode up the river and the other followed the round-up.

The night after the big snake-killing Jefferson Creede picked up his blankets and moved quietly back to the _ramada_ with Hardy.

"Them locoed punchers have been skinnin' rattlers and stretchin' their hides," he said, "until the camp stinks like a buzzard roost. I'm due to have some bad dreams to-night anyhow, on the strength of this snake-killin', but it'd give me the jumpin' jimjams if I had to sleep next to them remains. Didn't git back in time to join in, did ye?

Well, no great loss. I always did intend to clean out that snake hole over'n the cliff, and the boys was stoppin' every time they heard one sing, anyhow, in order to git the rattles for Miss Bonnair, so I thought we might as well git it off our minds before somethin' worse turned up. See any sheep tracks?"

He kicked off his boots, poked his six-shooter under his pillow, and settled down comfortably for the night.

"Nary one, eh?" he repeated musingly. "Well, when you see one you'll see a million--that's been my experience. But say, Rufe, why don't you come and ride with the boys once in a while? The _rodeo_ has been goin' rotten this year--we ain't gittin' half of 'em--and you'd come in mighty handy. Besides, I've been braggin' you up to Miss Bonnair."

He dropped this last as a bait, but Hardy did not respond.

"I told her you was the best bronco-buster in the Four Peaks country,"

continued Creede deliberately, "and that you could drift Chapuli over the rocks like a sand lizard; but I'm too heavy for anything like that now, and Bill Lightfoot has been puttin' up the fancy work, so far.

You know how I like Bill."

Once more he waited for an answer, but Hardy was wrestling with those elementary pa.s.sions which have been making trouble since Helen of Troy left home, and he received the remark in silence.

"I'll tell you, Rufe," said Creede, lowering his voice confidentially.

"Of course I see how it is with you and Miss Ware, and I'm glad of it; but things ain't goin' so lovely for me. It ain't my fault if Miss Bonnair happens to like my company, but Bill and some of the other boys have got their backs up over it, and they've practically gone on a strike. Leastwise we ain't gittin' the cattle, and G.o.d knows the range won't more 'n carry what's left. I've got to git out and do some ridin', and at the same time I want to do the right thing by Miss Bonnair, so if you could jest kindly come along with us to-morrow I'll be much obliged."

The elemental pa.s.sions--man-love, jealousy, the l.u.s.t for possession--are ugly things at best, even when locked in the bosom of a poet. In their simplest terms they make for treachery and stealth; but when complicated with the higher call of friendship and duty they gall a man like the chains of Prometheus and send the dragon-clawed eagles of Jove to tear at his vitals. Never until this naive confession had Hardy suspected the sanity of his friend nor the constancy of Kitty Bonnair. That she was capable of such an adventure he had never dreamed--and yet--and yet--where was there a more masterful man than Jeff? Anything can happen in love; and who was there more capable of winning a romantic woman's regard than good-natured, impulsive, domineering Jeff?

The thoughts flashed through his brain with the rapidity of lightning, and only his instinct of reserve protected him from his blundering tongue.

"I--I was--" he began, and stopped short. The idea of loyalty had ruled his mind so long that it had become a habit, ill suited to the cause of a jealous lover; and Jeff had confided to him as a child might run to its mother. Should a man take advantage of his friend's innocence to deprive him of that for which they both strove? Hardy fought the devil away and spoke again, quietly.

"I was going up the river to-morrow, Jeff," he said. "Seemed to me I saw a kind of smoke, or dust, over south of h.e.l.l's Hip Pocket this afternoon--and we can't take any chances now. That would take all day, you know."

He lay still after that, his brain whirling with contending emotions.

Each evening as he listened to the music of her laughter he had resolved to quit his lonely watch and s.n.a.t.c.h from life the pleasure of a single day with Kitty, such days as they used to have when he was her unacknowledged lover and all the world was young. Then he could always please her. He could bend to her moods like a willow, braving the storms of her displeasure, which only drew them closer in the end, secure in the hope of her ultimate yielding. But now the two barren years lay between; years which had stiffened his jaw and left him rough in his ways; years which had wrought some change in her, he knew not what. A single day might solve the crux--nay, it might bring the great happiness of which he dreamed. But each morning as he woke with the dawn he saw that mighty army without banners, the sheep, marching upon their stronghold, the broad mesa which fed the last of Jeff's cows, and Judge Ware's, and Lucy's--and sprang from his blankets. And when the sun rose and Kitty came forth he was far away. But now--

He was awakened from his dreams by the voice of Creede, low, vibrant, full of brotherly love.

"Rufe," he was saying, "Miss Bonnair has told me a lot about you--a lot I didn't know. She likes you, boy, and she's a good woman. I never knowed but one like her, and that was Sallie Winship. You mustn't let anything that's happened stand between you. Of course she never said anything--never said a word--but I'm wise that way; I can tell by their voice, and all that. You want to let them dam' sheep go for a day or two and git this thing patched up."

He paused, and Hardy's mind whirled backward, upsetting his fears, unmaking his conclusions. It was Jeff the friend who spoke, Jeff the peacemaker, who had stampeded him by the equivocation of his words. But now the voice broke in again, apologetic, solicitous, self-seeking.

"Besides, that son-of-a-gun, Bill Lightfoot, has been tryin' to cut me out."

G.o.d! There it hit him hard. Kitty, the immaculate, the exquisite, the friend of poets and artists, the woman he had loved and cherished in his dreams--striven for by Jeff and Bill, revelling in the homage of Mexicans and hard-drinking round-up hands, whose natural language was astench with uncleanliness. It was like beholding a dainty flower in the grime and brutality of the branding pen.

"I'm sorry, Jeff," he said, in a far-away voice. "I--I'd do anything I could for you--but I'm afraid of those sheep."

He dragged miserably through the remnant of their conversation and then lay staring at the stars while his hulk of a partner, this great bear who in his awkward good nature had trampled upon holy ground, slept peacefully by his side. The Pleiades fled away before Orion, the Scorpion rose up in the south and sank again, the Morning Star blinked and blazed like a distant fire, such as shepherds kindle upon the ridges, and still Hardy lay in his blankets, fighting with himself.

The great blackness which precedes the first glow of dawn found him haggard and weary of the struggle. He rose and threw wood on the coals of last night's fire, cooked and ate in silence, and rode away.

There was a great burden upon his soul, a great fire and anger in his heart, and he questioned the verities of life. He rode up the river gloomily, searching the southern wilderness with frowning, bloodshot eyes, and once more, far to the east where the jagged cliffs of the Superst.i.tions sweep down to the gorge of the Salagua and h.e.l.l's Hip Pocket bars the river's sweep, he saw that vague, impalpable haze--a smoke, a dust, a veil of the lightest skein, stirred idly by some wandering wind, perhaps, or marking the trail of sheep. And as he looked upon it his melancholy gaze changed to a staring, hawk-like intentness; he leaned forward in the saddle and Chapuli stepped eagerly down the slope, head up, as if he sniffed the battle.

CHAPTER XV

THE CATASTROPHE

A demon of unrest, twin devil to that which had so clutched and torn at the sensitive spirit of Rufus Hardy, seemed to rise up with the dawn of that ill-omened day and seize upon the camp at Hidden Water.

It was like a touch of the north wind, which rumples the cat's back, sets the horses to fighting in the corrals, and makes men mean and generally contrary. Bill Johnson's hounds were the first to feel the madness. They left before sun-up, heading for the wooded heights of the Juate, and led him a weary chase. At the last moment Creede abandoned the unprofitable working of The Rolls and ordered the _rodeo_ up onto Bronco Mesa; and Kitty Bonnair, taking advantage of his preoccupation, quietly gave him the slip at the end of their long eastern detour, and turned her pinto's head toward the river.

As for Kitty, her will was the wind's will, which changes with the times and seasons but is accountable to no universal law. Never in her life had she met a man who could quarrel like Rufus Hardy. Beneath her eye he was as clay in the hands of the potter; every glance spoke love, and for her alone. And yet it was something more than a smouldering resentment which made him avoid her, riding out before the dawn; more than the tremulous bashfulness which had stayed his hand when at times he might have taken hers. There was something deep, hidden, mysterious, lurking in those fawnlike eyes, and it made him insurgent against her will. It was a secret, hidden from all the world, which he must yield to her. And then she would forgive him for all the unhappiness he had caused her and teach him what a thing it is for a woman to love and be misunderstood. But first--first she must see him alone; she must burst upon him suddenly, taking his heart by storm as she had on that first day, and leave the rest to fate. So she lingered to gather some flowers which nodded among the rocks, the shy and dainty forget-me-nots which they had picked together at home; and when Creede was over the first ridge she struck out boldly up a side canon, tucking the miniature bouquet into the shadows of her hair.

The southern flank of Bronco Mesa breaks off sharply above the Salagua, rising slowly by slopes and terraced benches to the heights, and giving way before the river in a succession of broken ridges.

Along these summits run winding trails, led high to escape the rougher ground. Urged on by the slashings of her quirt, Pinto galloped recklessly through this maze of cow paths until as if by magic the great valley lay before them. There in its deep canon was the river and the river trail--and a man, mounted upon a sorrel horse, savagely intent upon his way. For a minute Kitty studied him curiously as he hustled along, favoring his horse up the hills but swinging to the stirrup as he dodged bushes across the flats; then she flung out her hand impulsively, and called his name. In a flash he was up in his saddle, looking. Chapuli tossed his head and in the act caught a glimpse of the other horse--then they both stood rigid, gazing in astonishment at the living statue against the sky. At sight of that witching figure, beckoning him from the mountain top, Hardy's heart leaped within him and stopped. Once more the little hand was thrown out against the sky and a merry voice floated down to him from the sun-touched heights.

"h.e.l.lo, Rufus!" it called teasingly, and still he sat gazing up at her. All the untamed pa.s.sions of his being surged up and choked his voice--he could not answer. His head turned and he gazed furtively over his shoulder to the east, where his duty lay. Then of his own accord Chapuli stepped from the trail and began to pick his way soberly up the hill.

From the high summit of the b.u.t.te all the world lay spread out like a panorama,--the slopes and canons of Bronco Mesa, picketed with giant _sahuaros_; the silvery course of the river flowing below; the unpeopled peaks and cliffs of the Superst.i.tions; and a faint haze-like zephyr, floating upon the eastern horizon. And there at last the eyes of Rufus Hardy and Kitty Bonnair met, questioning each other, and the world below them took on a soft, dreamy veil of beauty.

"Why, how did you come here?" he asked, looking down upon her wonderingly. "Were you lost?"

And Kitty smiled wistfully as she answered:

"Yes--till I found you."

"Oh!" said Hardy, and he studied her face warily, as if doubtful of her intent.

"But how could you be lost," he asked again, "and travel so far? This is a rough country, and you got here before I did."

He swung down from his horse and stood beside her, but Kitty only laughed mischievously and shook her head--at which, by some lover's magic, the dainty forget-me-nots fell from her hair in a shower of snowy blossoms.

"I was lost," she reiterated, smiling into his eyes, and in her gaze Hardy could read--"without you."

For a moment the stern sorrow of the night withheld him. His eyes narrowed, and he opened his lips to speak. Then, bowing his head, he knelt and gathered up the flowers.

"Yes," he said gently, "I understand. I--I have been lost, too."

They smiled and sat down together in the shadow of a great rock, gazing out over the peaks and pinnacles of the mountains which wall in Hidden Water and talking placidly of the old days--until at last, when the spell of the past was on him, Kitty fell silent, waiting for him to speak his heart.

But instantly the spell of her laughter was broken an uneasy thought came upon Hardy, and he glanced up at the soaring sun.

"Jeff will be worried about you," he said at last. "He will think you are lost and give up the _rodeo_ to hunt for you. We must not stay here so long."

He turned his head instinctively as he spoke, and Kitty knew he was thinking of the sheep.